Former UO president Myles Brand passes away

Kari Chisholm

Myles Brand, who served as president of the University of Oregon from 1989 to 1994, has passed away after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

After UO, he served as president of the University of Indiana Indiana University - and he was currently serving as the president of the NCAA, where he championed academic reforms. He's probably best known for having been the guy who fired legendary Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight, after Knight was accused of manhandling a student.

The Oregonian's Rachel Bachman reviewed his tenure at UO:

After voters passed the 1990 property tax-capping Measure 5, which sliced state funding for higher education, Brand laid off hundreds, slashed programs and raised tuition. He also launched the university's first comprehensive fundraising campaign, which raised $255 million in 5 1/2 years after beginning with a $150 million goal.

Brand's corporate approach to management, more common at universities now, put off some faculty members accustomed to tweed-and-Tolstoy leaders. They bristled at Brand's push to rely more on private donors and less on the Legislature.

Yet that shift later helped as state funding to the university dwindled, said Michael Hibbard, professor in the department of planning, public policy and management, and the UO senate president from 1992 to '93.

"Given the situation that higher ed is in nationally, the University of Oregon is not in as dire straits as a lot of places," Hibbard said. "A lot of the reason for that is because of what Myles did. He positioned the university to be able to withstand these hits."

Discuss.

By Kari Chisholm Sept. 16, 2009